The reason most companies turn to us is that Selling and Fulfillment across an extended supply chain has become complex due the myriad of choices that must now be provided to stakeholders in this process. Customers are demanding more options such as buying on-line and picking up in store Customers also want the option of returning items across channels The most efficient way to fulfill an order may now be with a partner product that is shipped directly to a customer Disparate systems create process gaps that are currently being filled with manual processes All of these issues create inefficiencies and lost revenue. The current systems are not flexible enough to provide a single view of all orders, inventory, and returns. They also do not have the ability to make changes to these systems quickly and efficiently when business opportunities dictate.

The reason most companies turn to us is that Selling and Fulfillment across an extended supply chain has become complex due the myriad of choices that must now be provided to stakeholders in this process. Customers are demanding more options such as buying on-line and picking up in store Customers also want the option of returning items across channels The most efficient way to fulfill an order may now be with a partner product that is shipped directly to a customer Disparate systems create process gaps that are currently being filled with manual processes All of these issues create inefficiencies and lost revenue. The current systems are not flexible enough to provide a single view of all orders, inventory, and returns. They also do not have the ability to make changes to these systems quickly and efficiently when business opportunities dictate.

At IBM, we call the path forward Smarter Commerce It starts with putting the customer at the center of your operations – which is itself is not a new idea – however, truly operationalizing it in today’s world of mobile/ social, ‘instant business’ means clients must leverage and act on insights generated through mobile and social commerce. It helps them more effectively buy market sell and service – improving margins, creating new revenue streams – improving efficiency and providing improved outcomes through out their entire value chain

Here you can see how Coremetrics fits with Unica and IBM’s other marketing, sales and fulfillment offerings. Unica focuses on the beginning of the marketing chain – demand generation, email, and marketing automation. Coremetrics provides analytics about website visitors, their behaviors and conversions, and leverages this data in a suite of online marketing applications for email, display advertising, search, recommendations and social analytics. Moving down the chain WebSphere and Sterling are transactional engines, while ILOG can drive supply chain and fulfillment with its rules engines.

The winners in tomorrow&apos;s commerce world will deliver a “Smarter Commerce” experience – one that is cross-channel by design, allowing customers to shop or buy seamlessly across channels and touch points. An experience that is informed by customer insights and is able to deliver product recommendations that are not only highly relevant, but also timely in nature. Smarter Commerce will benefit from highly efficient marketing capabilities that allow for a consistent message to be delivered across all mediums. And finally, Smarter Commerce will use intelligence gathered from an optimized supply chain to ensure that products and services will be fulfilled accurately and efficiently. IBM’s integrated portfolio for Smarter Commerce is comprehensive, covering Value Chain Strategy and Services (Consulting) – enabling solutions for core business processes, advanced analytics and workload optimized systems. Mapping back to the 3 things we mentioned that clients need to get right: Strategy – IBM can help clients analyze, refine, and redefine their value chain strategies Engagement - Improve and transform their customer &amp; partner engagement through core business solutions across all of these elements leveraging a best of breed portfolio of software, services and systems – such as retail store systems Insight - And continually evolve their value chain leveraging analytics to turn insight into action And very importantly, enabled by our workload optimized systems – more demand, more devices, more data has led to dramatic increases in the need for storage and server capacity as well as computing power. It has never been more important to have highly efficient systems –optimized for these workloads – and we have a portfolio perfectly tailored to meet those needs. IBM has depth and range to address all of the processes here – and do so in an integrated way.

Start anywhere, end anywhere is the whole interaction process. You can start on a Social Networking site where you see an Ad for a TV .. This ad was targeted to you based on your shopping behavior &amp; profile via Analysis done by SPSS &amp; Coremetrics. You decide to click on a link that takes you to a retailer website powered by WebSphere Commerce, where you complete your shopping and check out. You decide later to access your order via your Mobile device leveraging WebSphere Commerce’s Mobile store application. You modify the pick up location to be in-store. You head over to the store the next day and the checkout clerk is able to access your order via the Retail Store Solutions POS system and even provides you with a recommendation for speakers to go with your TV (powered by Unica)

These are the key functional areas required for marketing success in creating relevant customer interactions and long term relationships. Customer Awareness: Know everything there is to know about your customers and prospects Centralized Decisioning: Decide what should happen next in your ongoing dialogue with each customer and prospect Cross-channel execution: Put the message in front of customers and prospects, using the right channel at the right time Integrate Marketing Operations: Automate the “back office” of marketing to increase collaboration, efficiency and precision of marketing work

What do we mean by &apos;transformation&apos; and allowing our customers to think about how better to align with the consumer. No other industry changes as rapidly retail. Let&apos;s get into details… Depending on the history of the retailer, the customer experience started with the store as the primary channel. Then retailers adopted a direct-to-consumer strategy (or visa versa) with a catalog and call center. About 10 years ago, along came a new transformational channel called the Internet/web channel. And most recently, we&apos;ve seen the mobile channel shake-up the industry. And we don&apos;t know what is coming next, but we know one thing for certain – change will be constant. Along with the proliferation of channels, consumers began to change their shopping patterns. And there was no longer a linear path that consumers followed in the buying experience. Instead, they leveraged each of these channels to serve purposes specifically for their use. And to make it more challenging, consumers created a matrix of how they went through their buying experiences – meaning there was no single path that the retail could optimize, it had to be adaptable, flexible and capable of servicing the customer in real-time through every channel. How do you create an environment for your customers to seamlessly interact with you by any means? &lt;click&gt; - does your customers shop like this? &lt;click&gt; - or like this?

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At IBM we call the approach forward : Smarter Commerce Smarter Commerce combines IBM products, services, and assets into an integrated approach to help retailers put the customer at the center of their business Market Supply & Merchandise Serve Sell Creates personalized and relevant offers with seamless cross-channel interactions Drives intelligent and adaptive supply networks based on consumer demand Anticipates behavior and delivers flawless customer service across all channels Enables customers and partners to buy what they want, anytime and anywhere What value should I bring? How should I engage with them? Who is my customer? Customer